Shadow and Crimson
by Dakarne
Summary: A Vampire: The Masquerade and Forgotten Realms crossover... Can the mixedheritage adventuring party stop the Drow Shadow Adept and his Vampiress Lover


Shadow and Crimson

Prologue

Valdaeras watched the meeting unfold with a bored expression upon his drowish features. It was a quiet meeting, something about trade, commerce and other such business. In short: boring and monotonous.

He examined the people involved with the discussion, on one side were two red-robed humans, a woman and her male servant, both of them seemed to sport many tribal-looking tattoos. The woman's face held a cold, calculating and strategic gaze, reading into everything as if it were an endless game of chess.

On the other side of the discussion was an Orog, a deep orc, with brutish features and a green-skinned hue. Despite his brutish features and typical connotations that Orcs are dumb barbarians, he seemed rather intelligent, if a little arrogant. He seemed to be more well-groomed and well kept than other members of his race.

'I take it as fact that the shipment has yet again been,' the orc sneered, 'delayed, yet again?'

'This is an unfortunate development which we were unable to foresee…' the woman said, 'We have been working on a plan to rid ourselves of this problem, but…'

'Enough,' the orc uttered sharply, cutting her off, 'it is obvious to me now that you lack both the competence and willingness to fix this problem,' he glared, 'we can very well take our trade to other venues.' With that, he turned on a heel and left.

Valdaeras stepped aside hastily as the angered orc barged past. He turned to the woman and chuckled with amusement as the orc eventually left earshot, 'You always did have a way with people.'

'I apologise for the wait, Valdaeras,' she replied with a light smile, 'I hope you didn't mind too much.'

'When you get as old as I am,' he chuckled 'you tend to learn the true meaning of patience.'

The woman turned to her servant, 'Leave us, we have much to discuss… in private.'

'Very well, milady,' the servant replied before walking out the same door that the orc had.

'Finally, solitude,' Valdaeras chuckled, pulling back his hood to expose his obsidian-skinned and white haired features, 'and now we get on to the more serious business at hand.'

'Yes, the staff…' she replied quietly, 'have you been able to discern its location yet?'

'Yes, I have,' he grimaced, 'but it is not yet within our capability to grasp.'

'What do you mean?'

'It is in the possession of someone else already, although I have doubts that they realize its significance.'

'Can you retrieve it?' She asked, walking towards the far couch and reclining upon it almost lazily.

The drow nodded sitting himself down on the couch, next to her, 'Of course I can. It'll just take me a little more time is all.'

'Well,' she said, 'as long as that's settled,' she moved in closer and kissed him gently on the lips, 'we can move from business…' she pulled away the torso area of her crimson robes, exposing her ample bosom, '…to pleasure.'

'Agreed, milady,' Valdaeras grinned as he kissed her passionately in return.

Demika hurried through the streets of Waterdeep, fearing that she would be late arriving for the meeting. As she arrived at the small Waterdhavian inn, she shivered quietly in the cold winter air, rubbing her gloved hands together as she stepped into the warmth of the small building, making sure not to pull her hood down.

There weren't many people there, only the odd straggler and an adventuring group sitting at a table in the far corner. They fit the correct description, a moon elf, a wild elf, a halfling and a dwarf. A relieved smile crossed her features at she realized that she wasn't too late for the meeting after all.

She approached the adventuring group with an almost instinctively trained silence. They noticed her approach, and the halfling woman spoke up from her perch on the edge of the table, 'I'm guessing that you're Demika, right? About time you bloody showed up.'

'Yes,' she replied calmly, ignoring the halfling's attempt at humour, she never could quite get to grips with halfling behaviour, not that it was particularly easy for anyone else either to be honest, 'am I to take it that you five are the adventuring group that I've been sent here to meet?'

'Aye, we are.' The dwarf grunted, leaning against his large battle-hammer, which itself was balanced on the inn floor, he straightened up and stretched out a free hand towards her, still leaning on the battle-hammer, 'Me name's Rundin, a priest in the service o' Moradin.'

'A pleasure to meet you, sir dwarf.' she took the hand and shook it tentatively. She seemed to be nervous about something from her general bearing and pose, although it was admittedly hard for Rundin to tell with the feature-obscuring hood that the woman wore.

The halfling nodded towards Demika, 'Nice to meet you, I'm Salvia.'

'The feeling is mutual,' Demika replied passively, 'and what role might you play?'

'She's a bard who just tagged along for the ride,' the wild elf chuckled, 'I'm Taurandir, and I do all the muscle work around here.'

'And I, my good lady, am Morfindel,' the moon elf added finally, standing to greet her, 'I'm the brains of the outfit.'

'It's nice to meet you all,' Demika said somewhat nervously, 'I trust that you know why we're banding together for a short while…'

'You want us to help rescue your dear brother who is being held captive…' the halfling piped up with a wry grin, 'we just don't really know _where_.'

'Ivory of hair, obsidian of skin,' the beautiful looking woman said poetically as she entered the room with a unabashed expression upon her features, 'was your journey of desert dryness a fruitful harvest or a lost crop?'

'It went well.' Valdaeras replied offhandedly, sipping from his teacup. 'The _Madame du Rouge_ is appeased for the moment.' He wrinkled his nose in disgust. 'Her thayan ways sicken me, but she is a necessary ally, as much as we'd hate to admit it.'

'I often wonder why the lord of obsidian doesn't simply kill the Madame du Rouge…' the young looking human woman pondered quietly to herself, 'you are a masterful wielder of the unearthly energy, and yet you stall… are you a cobra waiting to strike or a scared bunny rabbit hiding in its nest?'

The drow scratched his chin, 'I am the warlord, gathering resources in order to properly make the strike...' he gestured to the scrolls and books strewn on the table, 'despite my power, an army will overwhelm me,' he looked up at her, 'the staff is key, I think… in this matter.'

'What of the staff?' She asked softly. 'When does it take its final place in the dramatis personae?'

'I wouldn't like to say at the moment,' he explained, 'it is rather boring work, and we needn't concentrate upon it.'

'Very well,' she replied eloquently, 'enough of the work and toil…'

'Yes,' he turned to her lustfully, 'ori'gato udossa morfeth ssinssrigg... ussta d'anthe.'

'Let us,' the woman said, 'our love is of passion and crimson,' she exposed her rather long canine teeth, pearly white and shining slightly in the low light of the room as she approached him, 'the lady above is but of bland and scarlet.'

'Indeed,' he replied as he stood up, examining her. She was beautiful, no doubt existed in his mind of that. Her alabaster flesh sported no flaw, scar or tattoo, her lips were a full and deep crimson, and she had long raven black hair which she kept in a long ponytail. Her eyes were a strange brown colour, almost a coppery-red in certain light. Her body was sensuous and supple, and she was particularly busty. She was clad in a long and elegant looking black dress, almost a ballroom gown in its style.

'You are lord of obsidian,' she said with a lustful gaze, 'lord of the dark below...' she kissed him tenderly on the lips before finishing: 'I am your devoted servant of alabaster, take me as I am here and now…'


End file.
